I dive down to the house where the window is open and perch on the sill. Inside, a woman is sitting at a table looking through a jar of gold and white flowers. A warm feeling comes over me. Time is breathing softly. I will be safe, I feel. All will be well.
T
Lyuda pulls her gaze from the scarlet rags of the poppies and shakes her head to clear it. The room is cool and she feels strangely light, as if air has been gently blown through the cells of her body.
She stands up and moves to the open window, where a bird is perched. There is a jar of sour cream on the windowsill, and Lyuda reaches out and takes it in her hand. Her fingertips tingle as they touch the cold glass. She dips one finger deep into the whiteness and raises it to her lips. She licks the length of it with the tip of her tongue, and then she puts her entire finger into her mouth and sucks the cream from it.
Cool, light, air.
Little sparrow, she thinks, looking at the bird. Life is good.
T
Slowly, I adjust to a new pattern on this side of the spring wind.
I look for twigs and feathers and I begin to rebuild my nest. There are plenty to find in this garden and the air is full of insects to eat. It is easier than it used to be. The trees are wilder and the grass is overgrown with flowers.
I see the woman standing on the step. She is familiar now. A girl is coming down the garden path. I fly with a twig in my beak to where I am building my new nest and I push it into the correct place. It will take a long time. I fly down, eyes searching for soft leaves and moss.
I cannot sing here. I have tried, but the urge has gone. My flock is not here. There is no mate to call out to. I want to return to my other nest, where the smell of the dark earth is not so strong. There is a scent here that is in everything around me – pushing, green, soil, change. I will let this change take me where it must, but I want to go back to my nest. I want to sing again.
T
Lyuda, standing at the window, shakes her head again and looks around. She puts down the jar of sour cream. How tidy the kitchen is, she thinks. She glances down at her hands, clasped in front of her. They feel so soft. She rubs them together slowly, one over the other. Delicate, supple hands. There is a ring on one of her fingers, woven gold with an amber bead set in it. She lifts her hand up to her face and looks at the ring. It doesn’t mean anything to her, although she feels that it should. She is aware of a delicious smell coming from somewhere. She wonders if she has smelled it before. It is some kind of perfume: exotic, sensual, arousing.
She walks around the kitchen. Something is different, she is sure, but she will find out what it is later. She goes out onto the kitchen step. There. The water bucket is sitting exactly where it should be, covered with a chipped plate. Angela must have put it there. Lyuda pauses for a moment. Who is Angela? The name just came into her head from somewhere. She breathes in, and then shrugs slightly.
“I must have put the bucket there,” she says out loud.
She looks up into the tree for the bird that was on the windowsill. She catches a glimpse of it perched in the crook of one of the branches. It has something in its beak. It’s making a nest, she thinks.
A noise makes her turn around. It is the garden gate being opened. A girl walks through it with a smile on her face. She closes it behind her. The girl has long, black hair and small gold earrings in her ears. She is wearing a white dress. She waves at Lyuda, and Lyuda raises her hand and waves back at her.
The girl calls out. “Is it okay? Can I play here today? Mama said I could come.”
“Yes Marusya,” says Lyuda.
Maria, Marychka, Marusya, Marusichka.
Lyuda pauses, and frowns. Where did that name come from?
She feels a strong desire to touch the girl. Her heart starts beating hard in her chest.
“Come here,” she says and she opens her arms to the child, who runs into her embrace. Lyuda holds her for just a moment and then bends down and kisses the top of her head. Her hair smells of earth and flowers. The girl pulls away and skips back a step, her open face sun-brown and smiling.
“Can I have a box?” she asks.
“A box?”
“You said I could pick the wild strawberries. Remember? I told you. They’re growing at the bottom of the garden. They’re ripe already.”
Lyuda answers slowly. “Yes, yes, of course.” She pulls her focus to the idea of a box. Where would it be? In the kitchen. In the cupboard. A girl. A box. Strawberries. She steps into the kitchen and she closes her eyes for a moment, then goes to one of the cupboards and opens it. There is a small wooden box. A thread of pleasure goes through her. She knew! She reaches into the cupboard and takes it out. She turns round to Maria, who has come into the kitchen behind her.
“Here you go,” she says. She holds it out to her, and for a moment, both of their hands are touching the box. Their smiling eyes meet, deep brown looking up into green and gold. Lyuda feels a stab of sadness moving through her and she twitches unexpectedly. A crease of pain touches her face, and she pushes it quickly away. She tries to smile.
The girl takes the box.
“Dyakuyu,” she says. “Thank you.”
“Eat as many as you like,” says Lyuda. “But leave room for lunch.”
“I know, I know,” says Maria. She pushes her long hair away from her shoulders and her face and she starts to go down the garden path, hopping first on one leg and then on the other, the box waving in the air in an outstretched hand.
Halfway down the garden, she turns around, balanced on one leg, and smiles at Lyuda, and her small, happy face seems like the most beautiful thing she has ever seen, full of light and sweetness. Lyuda feels a pain going through her heart again.
“Remind me,” she calls out to the girl. “How long have you been coming here?”
Maria’s smile doesn’t change. She hops onto her left foot and stands, balancing and smiling.
“Forever!” she calls back. “That’s what Mama says!” and she swings around and hops down the path to the strawberries.
“Yes, of course,” says Lyuda, and she turns away from the girl and goes back into the house. The scent is there again, luxurious, exotic, sensual. She glances around the kitchen once more, and then she goes through the doorway into the bedroom, where Volodiya is waiting for her.
19
When Lyuda awakens, she can feel the warmth around her body before she opens her eyes. It can’t be true, she thinks to herself. I can’t open my eyes. I can’t ever let this feeling go. She turns slightly in the bed, and he shifts, and it is true.
She has awoken and she is in his arms.
She feels an intense joy, and he pulls her closer to him and kisses her hair and makes a low, sleeping noise. Her hair is spread out over the pillows and his heavy arms are holding her naked within their heat, her face pressed against the width of his chest. A wild tingling is running through her body, as if her cells have awakened for the first time.
At last, she opens her eyes and moves her head to look up, and it is his face sleeping there, his arms holding her. It is possible, she thinks, and a river of love so strong flows through her that it feels as if she might be swept away in its current.
Everything is possible.
She turns again, in his arms, and drifts into sleep.
T
Lyuda pauses in the middle of the sunlit kitchen and looks around. This is how it is, she thinks. This is how it is meant to be. Volodiya is in the garden, washing himself under the wooden shower he has built behind the outhouse. She can hear the splashing through the open window and the chirping of the morning birds. She pulls her green silk dressing gown around her body and shivers. Her feet are bare and everything feels close, sensual, delicious. Volodiya will be leaving for work soon and she wants to get his breakfast ready. She strokes her stomach over the embroidered silk and then she reaches over for the bowl of potatoes and starts to peel them with a small knife.
He comes in from the garden while the oil is
heating in the pan. His hair is wet and a grey towel is hanging around his neck, with another tied around his hips. He walks over to the stove and wraps his arms around her from behind, pulling the silk against his damp body. “I’m starving,” he says. Lyuda turns around in his arms and reaches her face up to kiss him, and he kisses her mouth, his arms around her waist, and she can smell his wet hair, and the water from his body soaks through the silk onto her skin.
There is a noise on the windowsill and they both glance over to see a bird perched there. For a moment it looks as if it is going to fly into the room.
“There’ll be a stork landing there soon,” Volodiya says, moving his hand around to rest on her stomach. He kisses her forehead and then lets her go, a smile on his face.
“Yes, yes,” she says, looking at the little bird. “Soon.”
He walks into the bedroom and Lyuda breathes in deeply and closes her eyes. This is how it is meant to be. The touch of water from Volodiya’s body on her skin. She turns and picks up the slices of potato and drops them into the sizzling oil of the pan.
T
She sits opposite him at the table while he eats, holding a porcelain cup of sugared coffee. The radio is playing shanson music; male voices growling over a background of violins and accordions. He looks up at her from his plate of fried potatoes and liver.
“The house will be ready soon,” he says. “Why don’t you come and look at it tonight?”
“Are you working there today?”
“Some of the other sites need checking. There’s a new foreman starting in Khmelivka today, but I’ll be back by evening. My driver, Zhenia, can take us up there.”
“I’d like that.”
“You’re going to love it.” He turns back to his plate and picks up a piece of black bread. He takes a bite and looks straight at her.
“And then we’re going to start a family,” he says. “As soon as we’ve moved in.”
Lyuda smiles, and then unexpectedly, she shivers. She pushes back her chair and gets up and goes round the table to him. He slips his hand inside her robe and rests it on her bare stomach. She bends down and kisses him on the top of his head, breathing in the smell of his clean hair and body. “Lots of children,” she whispers to him, and then she straightens up and slips out of his arms, picks up her coffee cup and goes to the window. She sees Maria already in the garden, playing in the morning sunshine.
I’ll make her some breakfast, thinks Lyuda. I’ll make her some romashka, some camomile tea.
She takes a sip of the coffee. The girl is dancing, standing on one foot and pushing herself round with the other, leaning forward into an arabesque. Her black hair is plaited into a simple rope and her white dress makes her look like one of the fresh morning flowers, lit by the sunlight.
Volodiya scrapes his chair back and Lyuda turns away from the garden. She goes to pick up the plates from the table as Volodiya is pulling on his boots. She lays them on the sideboard and goes to him and he kisses her on the mouth. “See you this evening,” he says, and he puts his hand on her stomach once again before pushing open the door and stepping into the garden.
T
Lyuda watches Volodiya walking up the garden path and out of the gate. She leaves the plates stacked in a pile to wash later and she goes through into the bedroom. The sheets are lying on the floor and yesterday’s clothes are scattered over the bed and chair. The morning sun streams through the window and Lyuda goes over to the bed and lies down on it, pulling the pillows under her head.
The sunshine draws a wide stripe over her body, lighting up the green silk of her robe and warming her legs, her stomach, her breasts. Through the window, she can see people moving on the village street, just visible behind their garden fence and a row of tall hollyhocks.
A yellow butterfly lands on a hollyhock. A stork flies overhead to its nest on top of a telegraph pole.
She slips off her silk robe and lies naked on the bed in the sunshine. She looks down at her body, admiring its slender shape, pale and smooth. She strokes her stomach and imagines a baby inside her, growing bigger and bigger, and she imagines her body spreading out, hips and breasts and legs. She puts her hand over her middle and strokes it, and the sunshine lights up the soft hairs into pale gold. It would all be worth it, she thinks, for a daughter.
She gives a little shiver of pleasure and then slides off the bed. She goes over to the wardrobe and opens it, staring at the rows of dresses and blouses and skirts hanging in colours like a summer garden. She reaches to the bottom for a pair of gold sandals, and steps into them, holding onto the door. She looks at herself, naked, her body lean and long in the high-heeled shoes, her hair falling around her shoulders and back. She chooses a red dress, and pulls it down over the curves of her figure. She shakes her head at the reflection and smiles, and for a moment her eyes turn hard and cold. She gathers her hair with two hands and holds it over her head, making her even taller, the golden mass framing her face, her eyes, her lips. She nods.
A woman’s voice calls out from the front room. “Lyudichka! Are you there?”
Lyuda releases her hair and it tumbles down her back like a waterfall of gold. She goes to the door of the room.
“In here! Come through, Sveta. I’m just getting dressed.”
She waits in the doorway as her friend takes off her shoes and comes across the kitchen in a pair of Lyuda’s slippers. She stands in the doorway, staring.
“Bozhe miy, my god, Lyudichka! What a dress! Where the hell did you get the figure to wear something like that? I think you do it just to make me feel bad.”
The women laugh. Sveta walks across the bedroom to the open wardrobe. She kisses Lyuda on each cheek. “Bozhe miy, Lyuda! You’ve become a complete princess! No wonder, with Vova doing so well. But just look at you, dorohenka! You look beautiful!”
Lyuda steps back from the wardrobe. “You looked like this before you had three children. By the way, you know that Maria’s here, in the garden? I saw her this morning. Anyway, you still look beautiful.”
“Rubbish!” Sveta rifles through the clothes. She pulls out another red dress, long and narrow with a low-cut neck. She holds it up. “Wear this one for the party. If I could wear it, I’d steal it off you, but I’d look like a pampushka in it. Like a fat garlic roll.”
Lyuda looks at the scarlet dress and draws her fingertips over the silken material.
“Yes, I think it would look good. And I could wear it with the gold sandals.”
She reaches for Sveta’s hand. “Come on into the kitchen, I’ll make you some coffee.”
Lyuda looks for cups and saucers as Sveta sits at the table and reaches across to a bowl of strawberries. She chooses the ripest one and puts it into her mouth.
“I still don’t know how you got so lucky,” she says. “You married someone years older than you who’s now building houses all over Ukraine, and I married an idiot from school who can’t keep a job and spends all day making homebrew in the shed. I’m working a full-time job and my babulya is looking after the children and what do I even need him for? He’s a waste of time, that’s what.”
She takes another strawberry. Lyuda puts a pot of sugar on the table. The kettle has boiled.
“And look at you, Lyudichka! Everyone said you were a fool marrying Vova, and now you’re about to move into the biggest house in the region and you get to dress up like a princess and you spend more money in a day than I earn in a week. How the hell did that happen?”
Lyuda brings the coffee and a bottle of cognac to the table and sits down next to her. She pours the cognac over the coffee and adds spoons of sugar. She puts her hand on Sveta’s, and her soft fingers with smooth red nails cover her friend’s rough skin.
“Are you alright Svetichka? What is it? Has Vasya done something? Tell me.”
Sveta laughs. She picks up her coffee and takes a sip. “No, nothing like that! No, everything’s fine, dorohenka. Everything’s fine. I’m just jealous of all your things. You’ve done so well
and I’m so happy for you.”
She squeezes Lyuda’s hand, and then glances down and sees how dirty her short fingernails are. She pulls her hand away.
“Actually, I came to see if you wanted me to come to the clinic with you tomorrow. I know you were planning to go alone, but I thought you might have changed your mind.”
Lyuda crosses her legs and pushes her hair back from her shoulders. “No. I want to go on my own. But thank you for asking. You’re a sweetheart.”
“Then you’ll have to come and see me straight after.”
“I will. I’ll come straight to your house.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Sveta finishes her coffee. She reaches for a last strawberry and puts it in her mouth. There is a red stain on her cheek from the juice and she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. She glances around the kitchen and then back to Lyuda, and her gaze rests on Lyuda’s red dress and for just a moment her eyes narrow and her face goes still, then quickly returns to normal. She stands up.
“See you soon my harnenka,” she says. “You do look incredible in that dress. Lucky girl!”
“You’re the lucky one with those beautiful children,” Lyuda says, and they smile at each other.
Sveta goes out into the garden and calls for her daughter. “Marychka! Marychka! Come on. Time to help me with lunch.”
Maria comes skipping up the garden path, her long, plaited hair swinging from side to side. “Coming, Mamochka!” She smiles at Lyuda, and slips her hand into her mother’s.
“See you soon!” she says to Lyuda.
“See you soon, Marusenka! See you tomorrow, Sveta.”
Lyuda watches them from the doorway as they walk hand in hand up the path, Maria still dancing beside her mother, and then she shivers and turns back into the darker space of the kitchen, and she sits down again at the table, watching Maria’s shadow lean forward into a perfect arabesque, in the falling sunshine.
20
The bus comes to a shuddering halt outside the grey, concrete hospital block, and Lyuda steps up onto it and drops her token into the slot. She can feel the driver looking down at her tight dress, at her legs, and she walks past him without a word and makes her way down the narrow aisle to the back of the bus, through the stale summer heat, past outstretched feet and sweat and the smell of unwashed hair and blue-and-red checked bags crammed with fruit and vegetables from village gardens.
The Woman Behind The Waterfall Page 11